Civil N-tech co-op to continue: China

ISLAMABAD - Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, Sun Weidong, has said his country would continue its assistance to Pakistan in acquisition of civil nuclear technology within the UN framework.The Chinese ambassador Thursday won hearts of the members of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, which invited him for briefing on Pak-China bilateral ties and cooperation in various fields. Chairman of the committee Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari moderated. On the occasion, Weidong said that his country is coordinating with Pakistan in five sectors including energy, water management, defence, agriculture and communication.He briefed the committee on the status of various projects being undertaken in Pakistan. In this regard, he cited numerous Chinese projects like the Gwadar-Kashgar economic corridor, electricity projects in Port Qasim, Bahawalpur, transfer of technology for environment-friendly thermal power plants, and numerous highways and motorways projects. Ambassador Weidong also emphasized the need for promoting people to people contacts to further cementing the bilateral ties between the two brotherly neighbours and highlighted the efforts for promotion of Chinese language in Pakistan The Chinese ambassador also highlighted China’s active participation in acquisition of recently privatized 3G and 4G technologies, and would also be investing further in communications sector. “China desires transparent elections in Afghanistan, since these elections are important for Afghanistan”, he stressed; “since Afghan masses had suffered a lot and had struggled through all their sufferings,” he added.He also expressed China’s cooperation with Pakistan in the war against terror, since China was also a victim of terrorism as perpetuated by ‘East Turkmenistan Movement’, while joint production cooperation for manufacturing of warplanes like JF-17, and J-100 was also underway. The committee member Mahmood Khan Achakzai felt that Chinese interaction in Pak-India relations could help a lot, while PTI’s Shah Mahmood Qureshi paid glowing tributes to unique featured Pak-China relations.CHINESE AMBASSADOR CALLS ON MAMNOONChinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Sun Weidong called on President Mamnoon Hussain at the Aiwan-e-Sadr Thursday and discussed bilateral relations.The president’s forthcoming visit to China to attend the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was also discussed during the meeting. Mamnoon said that his interaction with the Chinese leadership during the CICA conference in Shanghai would help further boost the existing strong and strategic partnership between the two countries.